Taking R. to a children’s museum. At the center of a large room is a small Plexiglas box on a stand. Inside the box is a lynx, sitting stomach to floor because it does not have enough room to stand or turn around. Directly in front of the lynx’s face is a small video screen on which colored patterns cohere and dissolve. It blinks; from time to time its tufted ears twitch. A sign beneath the box reads: QUIET. LEARNING.

“At least it’s learning,” I say with relief. “They wouldn’t keep it in there if this was bad for it.”

Alex Danchev. Cezanne: A Life. Pantheon, 2012.
It's often loose and can feel like a collection of anecdotes, but then there's something appropriate about letting incidents hang free as disconnected brushstrokes rather than plaster it all with narrative contour.

Texts and images copyright (C) 2013 Paul Kerschen. Layout adapted from the Single A Tumblr theme by businessbullpen. The Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) has zygodactylic feet, leaving X-shaped tracks with ambiguous direction. The Pueblo and Hopi used the X symbol to mislead evil spirits. Border folklore in the early twentieth century held that a roadrunner would lead a lost traveler back to his path. In Mexico the roadrunner is known as paisano, countryman.